From the Back Cover

The Corporate Executive's Guide to Understanding Derivatives. How to Keep Your Company Out of TomorrowÕs Headlines! As a corporate manager or executive, you probably have little contact with the actual day-to-day trading of derivatives contracts. Regardless, your oversight responsibilities place your career directly in the hands of aggressive derivatives traders. Do you really know what they're up to? Derivatives is the first and only book written for youÑthe manager who is not a derivatives expert but is responsible for the experts. Concise, uncomplicated, and often entertaining, it gives you a basic understanding and appreciation for these complex yet powerful financial tools. Designed to offer real advice to real managers, with a minimum of academic jargon and theoretical sleight of hand, Derivatives provides: Descriptions and uses of major derivative classesÑfutures, options, swaps, and hybrids; Examinations of billion-dollar debaclesÑand simple steps managers could have taken to avoid them; Guidelines on how to structure your organization's oversight of derivative activities. Derivatives can be both beneficial and devastating. DonÕt let yourself get burned! Derivatives will give you a step-by-step tour through the amazing benefits of derivativesÑas well as an overview of their hazardsÑand put you firmly in control of your corporation's risk control program.

About the Author

Philip McBride Johnson (Washington, D.C.) is a partner at the law firm of Skadden, Arps, Slate, Meagher, and Flom. An accomplished author, he was chairman of the CFTC and played a key role in drafting federal derivatives legislation.